Census: Detroit population difficult to estimate

DETROIT – The Detroit Free Press reports that census takers have a harder time accurately counting residents in Detroit than in other large cities.

Two recent estimates of the city's population showed a 17.3 percent difference.

While all cities show some variance in the two estimates, no other city in the top 25 in the United States showed a comparable difference. Most large cities showed differences between the estimates of less than 3 percent.

The city's widespread problem of foreclosures and abandonment make getting an accurate count more difficult.

Demographers say the extreme variance in the two estimates shows the importance of getting an accurate count in the 2010 census, which will be used to determine billions of dollars in government funding.